The Battle

by Patrick Rambaud

  parrying blows with two swords crossed above his head. The uhlans' lances were too long for hand to hand fighting, and finding themselves tangled up in them and without time to draw their sabres or horse pistols, they rapidly disengaged, giving up their dead and several horses. Bessieres mounted one of those short-maned horses with red saddles trimmed with gold, then set off for the rear, accompanied by his saviours and the shattered remnants of his squadron.

  An officer in full-dress uniform was waiting in front of his bivouac. It was Marbot, Marshal Lannes's favorite aide-de-camp, who announced, in a slightly embarrassed voice, 'Marshal Lannes directs me to tell Your Excellency that he orders you to charge home . . .'

  Bessieres felt insulted. He turned ashen and retorted, scornfully, 'I never do otherwise.'

  The marshals' old animosity flared up again at the slightest provocation. Both Gascon, they had each jealously tried to thwart the other for nine years, ever since Lannes had set his hopes on marrying Caroline, the First Consul's frivolous sister. He accused Bessieres of having supported Murat's claim against his own: hadn't he been the witness at their marriage?

  Berthier had established his staff headquarters in the solid buildings of Essling's tile factory, which resembled a redoubt, with lookouts posted on the roofs, skirmishers at every window and even cannon on the ground floor. In a fury, Lannes entered the room where Berthier's maps were spread out on trestles, which he altered as he received news from the front or orders from the Emperor.

  'The cavalry is incapable,' said Lannes, 'of extricating us from this situation!'

  'It will do so eventually.'

  'And Massena? Everything's in flames where he is! When Hiller's finished with him, how many enemy troops will we have on our back?'

  'Aspern hasn't fallen yet.'

  'How much longer before it will? Why not send in the Guard as reinforcements?'

  'The Guard will remain in the front of the small bridge to safeguard the passage onto the island!'

  The Emperor strode into the room, having delivered this last sentence in an angry voice. He pushed Berthier roughly aside to consult his maps. Anxious at the course events were taking, he had not been able to stand being kept out of the way under the fir trees on Lobau for long. Napoleon realized that if the Archduke had attacked earlier in the morning he would have carried the day, but their luck could still turn; victory at Austerlitz had been decided in fifteen minutes. The sun would set in an hour and a half: now was the time to retaliate. 'Part of the Liechtenstein corps has reinforced Rosenberg's troops, sire,' Berthier was explaining, 'but Essling will hold until nightfall. Our entrenchments are solid.'

  'Alas,' Lannes ^added, 'our cavalry mounts charge after charge, which have no effect on the Austrians and give us little relief.'

  'They must rout the Austrians on the plain,' shouted the Emperor. 'Lannes, round up the entire cavalry, you hear me, and hurl it against them en bloc Attack! Bring back the Hohenzollern cannon! Turn them against the enemy!

  ,

  I want you to sweep everything before you in a hail of fire and iron 1 '

  Lannes bowed his head and left the room with his officers. The main pontoon bridge was still not repaired. Oudinot and Saint-Hilaire's men couldn't rush to the rescue. And what it the cavalry were lost in this massive assault^ Given fresh heart and with no one to bar their path, the Austrians would move on the villages in number and from every point on field.

  'What have you to say, Pouzet'* Lannes asked, taking his old triend by the arm, a brigadier-general who had been at his side from campaign to campaign and had formerly tutored him in strategy.

  'His Majesty always reasons in the same fashion. He continues to base his actions on speed and surprise, as he did in Italy, but fields on these large northern European plains are ill suited to such an approach. What's more, movement and ottence depend on light, highly mobile, highly motivated troops who can live off the land like bands of condottieri. But our armies have become too heavy, too slow, too tired, too young, too demoralized . .

  'Hold your tongue, Pouzet, hold your tongue!'

  'His Majesty has read Puysegur, Maillebois, Folard, and then Guibert and Carnot who wanted to restore war to its original savagery. What Carnot and 'Saint-Just advocated was fitting for their era. Of course an army with a soul is bound to win out against mercenaries! But where are today's mercenaries : And what side are the patriots on : You don't know : I'll tell you: the patriots are rising up in arms against us in Tyrol, in Andalucia, in Austria, in Bohemia, and they will soon do the same in Germany and Russia .. .'

  'You're right, Pouzet, but please hold your tongue.'

  'I'm quite prepared to do so, but at least be honest with me. Do you still believe in it all?'

  Lannes put his boot in the stirrup and pulled himself up onto the horse which had been led forward for him; Pouzet followed suit, but, as he did so, he sighed heavily enough for his friend to hear.

  #

  Anna Krauss's face was drawn as horrendous thoughts ran through her mind. She imagined soldiers trapped in a burning farm or stretched out on the ground, their stomachs slit open. Her ears rang with the pounding of the guns and the crackling of the flames. She seemed to hear diabolical screams. No reliable news of had reached Vienna yet and the city was gleaning its information from malicious gossip, with the only certainty everyone could agree on being the fact that both sides had been senselessly slaughtering one another down on the plain for hours. Anna's gaze played aimlessly over the pinkish light of the setting sun as it fell through the leaded glass windows. She had distractedly untied the laces of her Roman sandals and curled up in a corner of the sofa, not saying a word, hugging her knees to her chest. A lock of hair fell onto her forehead, which she didn't brush back. Sitting near her on a padded stool, Henri forced himself to speak to her in a soft voice, as much to reassure himself as to reassure her, and although she couldn't exactly understand French, his soothing tone comforted the young girl a little — but not too much, since Henri's voice lacked that note of sincerity which cannot be imitated. He had taken Dr Carino's repellent potions, which had given him some

  respite from his fever and, feigning conviction, he spun out his phrases and studied Anna lying prostrate in her shawl. After a while, he fell silent. Anna had closed her eyes. Viennese women's devotion, Henri thought to himself, is like a mystic's faith: their lovers go away and they simply shut out the world and turn in on themselves. The only thing Italian about Anna was her pretty face: her moods and gestures were entirely unselfconscious, she never played the coquette and her enthusiasm was moderated by tenderness. Henri would have liked to have made notes of these observations, but what would it look like if Anna woke

  up P

  She slept a sombre, troubled sleep, her lips moving as she murmured. To ward off Lejeune's death, Henri continued in a very low voice, 'Nothing will happen to Louis-Francois, I promise you . . .' At the other end of the room, Anna's two slender little sisters came skipping towards him, chattering noisily, and Henri turned round, signalling to them that Anna was resting; 'Quiet, please? The girls tiptoed nearer with exaggerated caution, as if it was a game. They had lighter hair than Anna, more pointed little faces and they were more soberly dressed. Henri silently stood up to shoo them away from the sofa and they started talking to him, pulling faces and gesticulating and bursting out laughing whenever they caught the other's eye. None of it made any sense to Henri. Finally, they started tugging at his frock coat and he had to follow them. They took him to the staircase which led to the eaves, trying, like cats, not to make the wooden steps creak, and Henri let himself be pulled along. What did they want to show him? One of them slowly opened a door and he found himself in a minute room, in complete disarray, which was used as an

  attic. The little girls rushed onto a chest and, squabbling over the best view, peered through a fairly wide crack between two slats in the wall. When they asked him to come and have a look, Henri, in turn, peered into the next room. There was M. Sta
ps, unaware that he was being watched. Lit by a ray of sunlight in which motes of dust floated, the young man was kneeling before a gilt statuette and holding a butcher's knife by the handle, its blade pointing downwards, like a knight on the eve of his investiture. Wearing a canvas shirt and with his eyes shut, he was intoning a sort of prayer.

  Henri thought he must be delirious. He's mad, he thought, I'm certain he's mad, but with what sort of madness? Who does this poor boy take himself for? What does that statuette represent? Why that knife? What scheme is he hatching in his overheated brain? What sorcery does he want to inflict on us? Is he dangerous? We are all dangerous; the Emperor most of all. We are all mad, as well. I'm as mad as anyone, but Anna is the cause of my madness, and Louis-Francois is the cause of hers. And he is mad as only a soldier can be . . .

  At that moment, Colonel Lejeune was having to fight alongside Massena's men. Since riding back into Aspern, to confirm Massena's orders to hold out until dusk and to inform him that the Emperor intended to launch the entire cavalry against the Austrian batteries, the village had come under siege and he hadn't been able to leave. Only the cemetery and the church remained in the voltigeurs' control; the Austrians had opened numerous breaches in the village's ruined defences and taken a firm hold everywhere

  else. Massena had had every large object that could afford protection - harrows, ploughs, furniture — lined up in the gaps between the guns, which were useless now the gunpowder had run out. On top of them, grenadiers were piling dead bodies to barricade the church square up to the cemetery wall, which men without ammunition were defending with whatever they could lay their hands on — bronze crosses, a beam, knives. Paradis had brought out his catapult and Rondelet was holding his spit like a rapier.

  Massena was proving his true worth in the chaos.

  When he realized that Hiller's artillerymen were rolling a cannon into a lane to shatter the church facade, he had a handcart filled with straw and leaves. He picked up a fallen branch and walked into the sacristy, which had been blown open by a shell, to light it off the burning embers. Coming back out, he threw the branch into the cart which caught fire instantly, and spotted Lejeune, who had no idea where to turn in the mayhem. 'Come with me!' he ordered. The two men each took an arm of the blazing cart, and, running hard, pushed it towards the lane. As soon as their incendiary device had picked up speed, they threw themselves on the ground, the bullets skimming over them, and the cart rolled forward, collided head-on with the mouth of the cannon and broke into pieces. The open powder kegs exploded and everything was blown' sky-high, the blast tearing the gunners to shreds. A group of grenadiers mounted a bayonet charge to rescue Massena and Lejeune, who had half-stood up, but it was impossible to get into the lane, which the burning houses had turned into a furnace. So they turned back and ran towards the shattered elms around the church. Some Austrians tried to block their path, but another group of grenadiers wielding beams like

  clubs broke a few skulls. Massena picked up a ploughshare and, with one swing, beheaded a couple of strapping soldiers who were pinned against a flight of steps. A white-jacketed officer slashed at Lejeune, who parried the cut, and then drove his knee into Lejeune's stomach, bending the Frenchman over double - fortunately for him, since the bullet aimed at the nape of his neck buried itself instead in the Austrian's forehead and blood gushed from the wound.

  Sitting on a stone bench attached to a house without a single wall left standing, Massena looked at his watch. It had stopped. He shook it and wound the key, but there was nothing he could do: it was broken. He swore. 'Plague it! My souvenir of Italy! It belonged to a monsignore in the Vatican! Pure gold and silver-gilt! Well, I suppose it was bound to pack up one day or another . . . Don't stay there on your hands and knees, Lejeune, come and sit down for a moment and compose yourself. You ought to be dead but you aren't, so take a couple of good, deep breaths . . .'

  The colonel dusted himself off and the marshal continued, 'If we come through this, I'll commission you to paint my portrait, but it's got to be in action, eh : Holding the ploughshare like just now, for instance, and flattening a horde of Austrians! We'd entitle it, Massena in Battle. Can you imagine the effect that would have? No one would dare hang a picture like that. Reality has no admirers, Lejeune.'

  A roundshot shattered part of the roof of the house in front of which the two men were sitting; Massena leapt to his feet. 'There it is, right on cue, that damned reality! Upon my word, those dogs are trying to bury us under rubble!'

  A horseman galloped into the village from the direction

  of the plain, slowed his horse near the church, questioned a non-commissioned officer, and, catching sight of Massena, who had broken into a stream of oaths, made straight for him. It was Perigord, as impeccable as ever.

  'Where the devil has this fellow come from. : ' asked Massena.

  'Your Grace!' Perigord handed a note to the marshal. 'A dispatch from the Emperor/

  'Let's see what harm His Majesty wishes me . . .'

  He read the dispatch, and then glanced up at the sun sinking in the west. The two aides-de-camp chatted to each other.

  'Are you wounded, Edmond'' asked Lejeune. 'Good Lord, no!' 'But you're limping.'

  'That's because my man didn't have time to break in my boots; the leather hasn't really softened up and every step is agony. As for you, my dear friend, your breeches could do with a good brush!'

  Massena interrupted them. 'Monsieur de Perigord, I presume that you did not cross the Austrian lines.'

  'The small plain this side of the village was clear, Your Grace. I only encountered one of our battalions of volunteers from Vienna.'

  'So, we could fall back there for the night, before we allow Molitor's entire division to be massacred . . .'

  'There are hedges, windbreaks of thickets, and a good number of ditches for cover . . .'

  'Fine, Perigord, fine. At least you've got sharp eyes.'

  Massena called for a horse.

  An equerry brought one immediately. Massena wanted to mount, but the right stirrup was too short. Swinging his

  leg over the withers to sit sidesaddle, he called the man back. As the equerry hurriedly lengthened the leather, a roundshot sliced off his head and shattered the stirrup. The horse bolted and Massena fell into Lejeune's arms. 'Your Grace! Are you hurt?'

  'Get me another decent horse!' Massena bellowed.

  Lannes, transfigured by the fighting, Espagne, Lassalle and Bessieres were charging at the head of their thousands of cavalrymen to break through the Austrian centre, hack it to pieces, cut it off from the wings, relieve the two villages in flames and make off with the enemy cannon. Fayolle didn't have this overall view. In the frenzied melee he behaved like an automaton, fearing nothing but desiring nothing either, wishing neither to draw rein nor to give chase, without a will of his own, a puppet swept along by the sound of bugles and war cries, yelling, sabreing, parrying, lungeing, shattering ribcages and running men through the neck. The cuirassiers had slaughtered a company of artillery and were hitching the captured cannon to the gun-horses. Espagne was directing the operation, his horse covered in foam and tossing its head up and down. Fayolle observed him out of the corner of his eye as he tied a harness to the trail of a howitzer: the general was grey with dust, straight-backed on his sheepskin saddle, but the distant look in his eyes belied the brief, precise orders he was dictating from habit. The trooper knew what was tormenting the officer: he couldn't silence his fear of portents. What was this? Could the hero of Hohenlinden -the same man who, years ago, in a snowstorm, had cleared the road to Vienna for the French — really be afraid of

  ^ Ram baud

  ghosts? Fayolle, as we have said, had witnessed the outcome of that strange scuffle at the chateau of Bayreuth, when General Espagne had been worsted by a ghost, but what had been the real cause of that? Hallucinations.5 Exhaustion? A malignant fever? Fayolle had not seen the spectre with his own eyes. The White Lady of the Habsburgs! He knew of the evil spirits that p
arents used to threaten children in his village with; they prowled around crosses at the roadside and terrified wayfarers. He had never believed in them.

  'Think you're on holiday in the country, Fayolle? 5 Captain Saint-Didier said, shaking his dripping red sword. He was hurrying the manoeuvre forward, so that the fourteen enemy cannon could be towed back to their lines without delay.

  General Espagne lifted his gloved hand and the troop hurried off. Fayolle and Brunei whipped the draught horses into a gallop, but on their right, grenadiers' bearskins suddenly appeared through the thick layers of smoke, followed by white uniforms and grey gaiters worn high to the knee.

  'Watch out!' shouted Saint-Didier.

  Most of the cuirassiers were wheeling their horses to bear down on the infantrymen, when a hail of roundshot caught General Espagne full in the chest and pierced his cuirass. The wounded man slipped and fell from his saddle, his foot caught in a stirrup; his horse bolted and dragged him along like a sack, his body bouncing over the wheat-fields ploughed up by the explosions. Fayolle spurred his horse in pursuit, crouching down low over its mane, and cut the stirrup leather with the edge of his sabre. The others came after him and gathered up the general's

  mangled body. His breastplate and backplate were taken off, he was wrapped in an Austrian officer's long white cape, which immediately bloomed with bright red stars, and then his body was laid on a gun carriage, head and arms hanging down, like a ghost.

  There were more dead lying on the tombs in Aspern's cemetery than in the graves. Overwhelmed, the voltigeurs were resisting as best they could by hurling stones at Baron Hiller's skirmishers. Paradis even had the satisfaction of hitting several with his catapult, but like the rest of his decimated battalion he was falling back, hoping to scatter across the fields and duck out of sight behind the bushes and tall grass. Austrians blustered triumphantly on the cemetery w r alls, and waved their standards emblazoned with a double-headed black eagle or a Madonna in a sky-blue dress, who seemed out of place in that hellish spot. The drums beat arrogantly. The French let themselves be shot at, as if they were prey running headlong before a hunt. A cannon aimed through an opening in the splintered wall and Paradis and Rondelet fled without being able to return fire. They crouched down to catch their breath behind the body of a stocky non-commissioned officer, w ho had fallen on a cross and was pinned there like a scarecrow. Rondelet straightened up a little behind the corpse to see how far the enemy had got. 'Strike me, it's the sergeant-major!'